In the assembly of many diverse structures, such as automobiles, buildings, appliances, etc., it is often necessary to place a cover or exposed sheet metal or plastic structure on a frame or supporting structure in a manner which secures the outer workpiece to the structure in a very accurately determined spaced relationship to one another and in such a manner as to prevent vibrations and relative movement to one another.
Many diverse manners of achieving this are known, and the prior art techniques all involve expensive, time consuming and complicated shimming applications.
The subject invention utilizes a system which eliminates the expense and handling of the prior art devices and utilizes a single metal shim member which is designed to be secured to the substructure in such a manner as to have a first configuration which presents a surface spaced from the substructure a predetermined distance. The ultimate, accurate dimensional spacing is achieved by carefully preferably computer controlled, precompressing or collapsing of this device in a manner prescribed by the actual operation. This is followed by the actual securement of the support member utilizing a self-drilling threaded fastener which carefully controls and maintains the predetermined required spacing at the location.